Stress Management

Introduction

Stress is a normal body response that involves metabolism, muscles, and memory; it can also be referred to as psychological pressure. Stress involves the brain and body responses which begin in the brain as a perception and is an act of nature caused by internal and external factors that revolve around our world that affect us as individually. The external factors that create stress include home surroundings, relationship status, retirement, school work, and work duties, while internal factors include emotional welfare and the rest we entitle to our bodies. The changes in our lives that we term as ‘significant’ and mind-blowing and the feeling of not being in control of everything causes stress. As much as stress is viewed as bad, it is part of the reason that we have adapted and survived as a species. A person can feel emotionally astounded, anxious or have thoughts that worry. Physically, stress is characterized by constant headaches, dizziness, and the feeling of fatigue. Individuals can behave in unusual ways like indulging in alcohol consumption, smoking or snap at people and be a nuisance owing to stress (Kendler et al., 2010). A link exists between health problems and stress. Studies document the various impacts of stress on the health of people. However, quantifying this relationship may require empirical analysis of qualitative data.

Stress and emotion

Stress comes into lives of individuals with a general feeling of loss of control over situations. Stress and emotions are intricately linked, with everyday occurrences in life having levels of stress on the body. However, the loss of control or the idea of the locus of control is a major aspect of stress. Individuals feel overwhelmed due to the apparent feeling of inability to control the situation; this creates a sense of loss of control and immense stress (Green, 2000). Individuals with low levels of locus of control feel that they have little control over the events that occur; they are more susceptible to immense psychological and physical effects of stress (Green, 2000). Psychological stress management interventions are designed to improve the general sense of being in control.

Relationship between stress, coping strategies, and health problems

The management of stress is based on coping. Coping is the process of management of the taxing internal and external demands (Billings, & Moos, 1981). Coping has been defined as the process that individuals use to protect themselves from external and psychological threats. Another approach considers methods of coping, classifying responses into cognitive and behavioral strategies (Billings, & Moos, 1981). Dealing with stress is seen as effective than avoiding stress. Coping strategies have been investigated over time, with students being one population that has been studied. Students are a population that provides interesting dynamics owing to the various situations that they face in their institutions. The findings pointed out that women reported more emotion-focused strategies and more avoidance and active behavioral strategies than men (Billings & Moos ,1981). However, the findings also noted that even as there was a notable difference, there was a similarity in the way men and women responded when coping with a range of incidents. The study also found that the indices of coping and social resources appeared to have an effect on the relationship between the stressful event and the person’s ability to deal with it and also provided information on how stressful the events were (Billings & Moos ,1981). This was elaborated in the case of losing a loved one when they feel the stressful moment because the support from their loved one no longer exists, but this loss ends up strengthening other social bonds. According to Billings and Moos, it may not be possible to identify the positive and negative types of coping because of this complex relationship between coping and social support and the even to be dealt with (Billings & Moos ,1981).

A study on coping strategies considered international students in Lithuanian universities. The students face a lot of stress from the problems of language barriers, decreased self-esteem, strenuous academic demands, being homesick and having a lack of assertiveness (Sapranaviciute, Perminas, & Pauziene, 2012). Stress coping has been classified into problem-oriented and emotion-oriented stress coping methods. The problem-oriented stress coping involves the person mobilizing actions to change the relationship between themselves and the environment. The emotion-oriented stress coping regulates the emotions without modification of the environment. Results from the study reveal that male Lithuanian students coped with stress through venting, effective social and emotional social support coping strategies than the international students (Sapranaviciute, Perminas, & Pauziene, 2012). The most common coping strategy for international students was seen as a religious coping strategy than in the host students. In female students, international female students used venting of emotions less often than the host students. The link between health problems and emotions is seen in the prediction of higher levels of health complaints in international students; denial, venting of emotions and religious coping strategies were all focused on (Sapranaviciute, Perminas, & Pauziene, 2012).

Studies on stress, health problems, and coping strategies have been investigated over time. In order to establish the relationship between the factors, or measure the relationship between stress and health problems, a study can be conducted with the student population to quantify the link between stress, health problems and coping. Negative life change events, social resources, coping responses and symptom dimensions are all used in the measurements of the relationship between stress, emotions, and coping strategies (Billings, & Moos, 1981). A study was conducted with the student body as the sample, using both male and female participants of Malaysian, Chinese, Indonesian, Singaporean and Saudi Arabian descent. The measurement of the qualitative data took on the analysis of the interpretation of life changing units (LCU), health problems and the strategies applied for coping. Statistical results show the LCU score being 245.5, Health Problems score being 12 and the coping score being 10.5; the LCU score indicates moderate stress situations. In the analysis, higher LCU score translated into greater health problems. This essentially proved the empirical link between stress, health problems, and coping strategies.

References

Billings, A., & Moos, R. (1981). Stress? I Can Handle It!. Journal Of Behavioral Medicine, 4, 360-366.

Green, S. (2000). Staying in Control. Philip Allan.

Sapranaviciute, L., Perminas, A., & Pauziene, N. (2012). Stress coping and psychological adaptation in the international students. Open Medicine, 7(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/s11536-011-0161-7